We, therefore, now have a coalition of people who want the Southern flag taken down and hidden from public view. This coalition is composed of three main groups. First of all are African-Americans, whose emotional position is totally unmitigated by any knowledge of history.
It's the "totally" and the "any" that make the difference.
His survey of the role of Southerners in expansion is a useful antedote to the usual talk about Lincoln and the American empire, though. There was no less imperialist sentiment in the South than in the North. It took the form of settlement more than that of "Dollar Imperialism." It's not clear how colonization, rather than exploiting our economic advantages, would have made us more loved by our neighbors.
Blaming Northerners for not being fully on board in the Mexican War, isn't consistent with singling out the North as the source of American imperial feeling, as some do. But where there's a fault line and people who want to exploit it, anything is "fair" game.
It's similar with his praise of the Confederacy as the "ideal" form of government. Beware the worship of the "ideal form of government," since it eventually leads to worship of government as such and in itself.
Those who think an independent South would have been less "statist" than the Union has been are clearly mistaken. "State sovereignty" is sovereignty and "Southern Nationalism" is nationalism, and neither was apt to be more respectful of the individual than federal supremacy or American nationalism were. One could make a case that they would have been less respectful, at least in certain regards.
In our federal system, we pit the county courthouse gangs against the federal government. Independence means that those courthouse gangs make up the central government, and in time, they're likely to want to assume the same powers. The idea of some that a triumphant Confederacy would have meant blessed anarcho-capitalism is woefully mistaken.
Our country was great because it contained different regions with different strengths and weaknesses which complemented and offset each other. That was the true strength of federalism. To ascribe all virtue to one section is a mistake, since at different times the country has needed the strengths and virtues of the different sections to survive.